


and for those who died

by iridescentemrys



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, Gen, Rape/Non-con References, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-05 12:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentemrys/pseuds/iridescentemrys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bottle of whiskey and a revelation. Inspired by Batfamily headcanon 217.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and for those who died

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in under an hour and it isn't beta-ed, so there may be some mistakes. Based off of this headcanon:  
> 217\. Jason is the only member of the family who knows that Dick was raped by Tarantula. Dick only told him due to a combination of alcohol and the belief that his brother’s opinion of him couldn’t get lower. Jason surprised him by being furious- but at Tarantula, not Dick. He was angry with Dick as well, but only because Dick assumed Jason wouldn’t believe him, or if he did would blame him. They haven’t talked about it since, though if Jason keeps a closer eye on Dick now, neither of them mention it.

Dick wasn’t a drinker.

He didn’t smoke. He rarely even ate fast food. He usually hates feeling unattached like that, as if he can’t fully control his body. He hates feeling like he isn’t all the way there.

But everyone makes a few exceptions.

The whiskey burned as it trailed down his throat, and he grimaced as he forced it down. He was getting that feeling again, the one he always hopes will go away. Like he can’t get his thoughts together, can’t put anything into words, can’t even finish a sentence before his mind fades into silence.

The sharp scent of tobacco announced the newcomer before he speaks. “Well, well, well,” Jason drawled, leaning against the doorway. He had a cigarette between his lips and his helmet under his arm. “The golden boy, the chosen one…getting wasted. Will wonders never cease.”

“Shut the fuck up, Jason.” Light streamed in from the outside, burning his oversensitive eyes. He turned away.

Jason chuckled. “Touchy. Alright. I get it.”

“ _Do you?_ Do you _really?_ ” The bottle was empty, had been for a while. He wondered for how long and he crushed it in his fist. Blood dripped to the floor with shards of broken grass, mingling with the last few drops of dark brown poison. “Then get out. Just go…go the fuck away. I don’t…don’t want you here. We don’t want you…here.”

“Never woulda pegged you for a _mean_ drunk,” he mused, “Do those need stitches?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Fuck you. Just…just fucking _fuck_ you.”

“Lemme see.” He took a step closer to Dick, who slid further away. “ _Let me see_.”

“Don’t _fucking_ touch me. Don’t…don’t touch…”

Jason grabbed his hand, roughly pulling it closer to him to examine the damage. The cut was deep, and the combined effects of the shards of glass still stuck in it and the whiskey soaking in must have hurt like a damn bitch, but Dick wasn’t showing it.

“Yeah,” Dick muttered cynically, “She didn’t listen either.” He started laughing darkly, and it came out ragged and sharp. Jason suppressed a flinch.

“What?”

“Never mind. N…”

Jason worked in silence for several minutes. He had been right; it did need stitches, but he didn’t have a med kit with him. He’d have to go get one, but he wasn’t sure if he felt all that good about leaving Dick alone.

“Does it bother you?” Dick’s head lolled slightly to the side, and he traced a finger through his blood where it had fallen on the wooden floor, drawing something. A spider.

“Does what bother me?”

“Kill…killing. Blood. Guns. Does it _bother you_?”

Jason dropped his hand like it had burnt him. “Why the fuck would you ask me that?”

There was a long silence, and Dick’s reply was so quiet Jason had to lean closer to hear it. “It bothers me.”

“Is this about Blockbuster?” Jason asked tentatively. He was aware that it was an understandably sore subject for Dick, but he’d seemed so excruciatingly _alright_ that the Jason, along with most of the rest of the family, had just about forgotten about it.

Dick shook his head, but whether that was in reply to Jason’s question or a fruitless attempt to clear his head wasn’t clear. “I never really liked s-spiders, you know, I wasn’t scared of them, but who really likes them very much? I can’t even think about them right now. I don’t…know.”

“Tarantula, then,” Jason muttered resignedly. “C’mon, scoot. I need to wipe up the floor.”

He tried to reach down with a towel (well, it was actually a throw blanket, and he could already hear Alfred’s lecturing, but fuck it), but Dick grabbed his arm with a shaking hand.

“ _No!_ Y-you don’t understand. I tried. I didn’t want… She was _there_ and I couldn’t move and…” He buried his face in his hands (and, Jesus, how did he get so _cold_ ), smearing blood across his cheek.

“…Dick,” Jason began in the calmest voice he could muster, “Please, _please_ tell me that you’re just fucked-in-the-head drunk and that everything you’re saying is just you spewing bullshit like usual. Can you do that?”

“I’m sorry,” was all Dick said.

“ _Fuck_.” Jason looked at that fucking spider that Dick had drawn in the blood, and suddenly he couldn’t stand to look at it, to sit still anymore. “That cunt-faced _bitch_. Why the _fuck_ didn’t you say anything?” He rose and strode across to the wall, wishing that he could throw something.

“Would you?” Dick asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, no, but you’re supposed to…you’re s’posed to…” He struggled to find an ending to his sentence. “…to be…you…,” he finished lamely.

“…oh.”

“Yeah.”

Jason slumped down to sit on the floor beside him. His cigarette had long lay forgotten on the coffee table, his helmet on the couch behind them.

“You’re…you won’t say anything…will you?”

“No. No, of course not.”

“Good.”

Silence.

“I wonder if I’ll remember this tomorrow.”

“Maybe. You usually remember the things you don’t want to.”

“Yeah.”

Hours later, Jason crept out of the room and snagged a med kit from the Cave. Tim gave him an odd look and Alfred pretended not to see, and he hurried back upstairs to treat Dick’s hand.

When he had the acrobat (who had now been passed out for almost an hour) safely in bed, he walked into the kitchen to grab a beer, and found Alfred waiting for him.

“I trust you looked after your brother’s hand?”

“How did you…” _It’s Alfie_ , he reminded himself, _Of course he knows._ “Yeah, I did.”

Dick woke up the next morning with the worst hangover he’d had in years. He found his way downstairs at about noon, and he gave Jason a subtle nod. It was acknowledgement, perhaps. Respect. Understanding.

And that was that.


End file.
